Time to post news on how work progresses


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17 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

Also, ever wonder what the red flag means at the trappers cabin in the main menu? And the red strips of cloth on Astrid's arrows during the story trailer?

Are they markers? Do they signify being part of some sort of group?

 

I believe that the "flag" is actually just a scarf wrapped around the post, but that's just what I've always assumed. The red strips on her bow may be a way of keeping track of your arrows. Nowadays they have LED notches on modern arrows, and this could be something similar in nature- just being able to find your arrows for later.

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14 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:


I completely disagree.  It is made perfectly clear what you are purchasing.  You are not entitled to complain about a delay in or lack of development.

EA.JPG.2f6550310e099979d3974715ac240c1a.JPG

Well, take it as my humble opinion, but that sign is there not to avoid anyone to complain... but to avoid legal issues ;) 

That's a Steam disclaimer, present in every single EA game in the Store. I don't know what most of the people do, but before I click on "buy" I tend to read what the developers have to say. Here is an example (not TLD).

stranded.JPG.4d649a6cd99192d26065805868deed75.JPG

Obviously I'm not encouraging bashing devs, firing up flames in forums, or any short of bad behaviour. But complaining is not a bad thing if is done with respect. Criticism is not a bad thing. Critics are what makes us improve, and what usually let us see the forest behind all those trees. 

(Edit: by the way, quotes are always better when they include full sentences, otherwise it would lead to missinterpretation of the original meaning. Bolded part below for reference)

I think people is completely entitled to buy an Early Access game and them complain about the time it takes to deliver the product, when it surpases the original estimations...

12 hours ago, togg said:

This is incredibly OT and risky but wait... You can complain to people that have struggles complete a difficult thing as a videogame? This is shocking. Those people have a life, they're normal people. One thing is complaining if someone scam you explicitelly, another if things simply don't work out perfectly.

Just to recap it in my head:

1) videogames, especially 3D ones, need a lot of time to make. Everything push the devs to underestimate the time needed, this distorted view is not their fault.

2) Life is hard, if you put 10$ into something and then be half happy it's ok. We are not those that live or die with 10$. Also the point of early is that it's a process that can go well or not so well.

3) Complaining to self employed workers means hurting people deeply.

 

Bottom line: the future will not be better by trying enforcin stricter/realistical deadliness or anything like that. Just learning to manage expectation together in a more relaxed way.

I agree, we went too OT... :D 

I think you guys see the action of complaining in a harsher fashion that I do. I don't want to take this post hijack much further, but:

1 & 3. Its always part your own fault when you understimate the time it will take you to do something. Pointing the finger to the people rushing you will never fix the root cause. I'm not "bashing" anyone here. I think you are trying to make me realize developers are real people with feelings (thanks for the hint :D) in order to deny a simple truth: is the real people who make mistakes. I dont want to hung them in the square, I'm not insulting anyone, I just said that, after deadlines are surpased, people should have at least the right to complain... in a polite way.  

2. This was never a conversation about the money. 

Bottom line: the future will be better if we all give the best we have, while remaining open to hear other's people criticism about our actions without feeling so personally hurt that any improvement is denied by proud ;) 

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People might have the right to complain. I am not one of them, however, since I have a deep respect for all self employed creators, who are committed to deliver what they envisionned in first place, and I know it's very difficult. 
But I was specifically talking about people who downvote a game just because the schedule is delayed. That seems extremely childish to me (like: I want my toy now!)

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Yeah, I don't like to see games downvoted in a childish way either. And I share your respect for self employed creators... but (and I'm again talking about the early access and kickstarter system in general, not about TLD) its important to remember that they are able to jump into those creative endeveours thanks to the crowd founding. I love the system and I'm a constant baker, my point is just about the necessity for the projects to run cycles understandables for those crowds. Otherwise the crowd founding could get a bad name and lose force.

And please let me just make very clear that I'm not currently complaining about this game or how Hinterland if managing deadlines. I've very much enjoyed every single communication they have made since I joined the community. I was just digging into the interesting topic you opened talking about people "complaining" about timelines in Steam's EA reviews. Sorry if it went too OT, and apologies to the OP. While I'd like to keep going, I'd rather have it done in a different thread to avoid derailing even more. 

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Thanks everyone for your patient and understanding posts! We know you're being generous with us and want you to know we really do appreciate it.

We don't begrudge anyone for feeling frustrated with how long The Long Dark has been in development, and do our best to create an environment where discussion is healthy and criticism is welcome (even when it stings.) You guys do a great job of making thoughtful posts and keeping the conversation friendly.

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57 minutes ago, Mel Guille said:

Thanks everyone for your patient and understanding posts! We know you're being generous with us and want you to know we really do appreciate it.

there I was on my daily visit to the forum and checking the latest topics when I saw this line in the preview, suggesting news - well... :D

Patience is not so much a problem - I've got plenty, still over 30 years to my pension - but an ETA of some sorts would be nice simply for planing purposes, as there are hollidays to give in at work, hotels to be booked for wife and kids and so on ;)

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Does nobody concede that EA successes and failures are tied to regular communication and updates from the devs? Always loved Hinterland because of the community engagement. See SpinTires.

I think one of the key parts these EA arguments misses is something like "the community will be involved" and "we will provide regular updates" *edit* I meant just dev progress updates. Not builds.

I'm happy with TLD and have been for a year now. But we also bought in to involvement.

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7 hours ago, KirbyAWD said:

Does nobody concede that EA successes and failures are tied to regular communication and updates from the devs? Always loved Hinterland because of the community engagement. See SpinTires.

I think one of the key parts these EA arguments misses is something like "the community will be involved" and "we will provide regular updates" *edit* I meant just dev progress updates. Not builds.

I'm happy with TLD and have been for a year now. But we also bought in to involvement.

10-4 on that, I love spintires but I haven't played it in quite a while. Driving 4x4's in that game is the next best thing to wheeling in real life! The main difference I see between Ovee and Hinterland is HInterland has a presence here on the forum, the games director @Raphael van Lierop reads and posts on the forums, and @Patrick Carlson and @Mel Guille are dedicated to being here to comment, answer questions and just have fun! Ovee is almost completely MIA on their forums.

Sam

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I cannot fathom why hinterland does not want to be on the winning side of this, for once.

They know the game won't be complete for at least another 4 months.  We suspect the game won't be complete for at least another 4 months.

Announce as much.  Why keep teasing the opposite (and improbable)?  Be right for a change.

And if they are wrong?  The game gets released in only 3 months.  Don't see anyone complaining about that...

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1 hour ago, Vinceofpyrenees said:

Viewing all the things waiting to be realesed, on the official roadmap. It's huge. I guess 1 year still full release. What do you think ?

All things may not be incorporated, as they said, or could be released in future "seasons" of the story. For example, maybe in season x, horses will be an important part of the story, and will thus be introduced in sandbox to match. I want to keep on the positive side of things. Saying "Well, maybe it'll come out at the end of this month, or next month" is a lot more encouraging than "Oh, we shouldn't be expecting anything for another 6 months, so why even bother...". So all you Debbie-downers out there, keep your chin up! This is a downhill battle that will eventually lead to victory!

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Welcome to the forums @KirbyAWD ^_^

As for the delay of any announcements... I wouldn't worry too much as there are many active folks from Hinterlands on the forums. I suspect they're just waiting until they are sure that there is something to announce (whether it's an updated roadmap, tech demo, etc.) before posting anything.

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25 minutes ago, CalNieDaGtarGuy said:

The four month mark since the last news update is approaching quickly...

 The last update made it quite clear of the trajectory moving forward; story mode. As far as I know, this game is their job, their bread and butter so to speak and to think that they are just watching TV all day on a sofa made of money or otherwise goofing off seems...off. Yes, they took my money but I have already had 160 hours of some of the best gaming I have had in a long time; they really owe me nothing in my mind. And yes, story mode was promised and I hold them to that promise, but with some considerations on my part; considerations and patience.

 We must keep in mind that this is a small team; we could have the whole crew over for dinner and not have to look for extra chairs. These things take an incredible amount of time, something we are often unaware of with AAA studios who have hundreds of people working on a title to get it out within a two to three year time frame. We see this as a fast process because they don't say anything until they are approaching a launch and have multiple teams developing entirely different games, releasing at different times, seemingly quickly and endlessly. The Hinterland developers have families and real life things to do, some as mundane as picking up the kids after school but all of which takes them away from work, just as it does to all of us.

 "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"; I suspect that the team are also contending with burn out; it has been a long road already and with the success of the sandbox mode, they came under much more pressure than they might have originally thought. I think threads like this are in this sense quite counter-productive; they don't motivate, but burden or distract.

 I know that you know all of this and am honestly not trying to insult you and intend no offense my friend, but the point is that I would rather have them spend the hour an update would require working on the game.

 We know what they are doing in a general sense and we first don't need our hands held to know they are there and second, probably wouldn't be interested in the minutiae with which they are engaged.

 UPDATE: Coding, recording dialogue, creating art assets, working on animations, map design and engine tweaks. Play testing, bug notes and squashing, then doing all of that previously mentioned stuff some more. All day. Every day.

 Yawn. Call me when it's done. :)

 

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1 hour ago, Carbon said:

 The last update made it quite clear of the trajectory moving forward; story mode. As far as I know, this game is their job, their bread and butter so to speak and to think that they are just watching TV all day on a sofa made of money or otherwise goofing off seems...off. Yes, they took my money but I have already had 160 hours of some of the best gaming I have had in a long time; they really owe me nothing in my mind. And yes, story mode was promised and I hold them to that promise, but with some considerations on my part; considerations and patience.

 We must keep in mind that this is a small team; we could have the whole crew over for dinner and not have to look for extra chairs. These things take an incredible amount of time, something we are often unaware of with AAA studios who have hundreds of people working on a title to get it out within a two to three year time frame. We see this as a fast process because they don't say anything until they are approaching a launch and have multiple teams developing entirely different games, releasing at different times, seemingly quickly and endlessly. The Hinterland developers have families and real life things to do, some as mundane as picking up the kids after school but all of which takes them away from work, just as it does to all of us.

 "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"; I suspect that the team are also contending with burn out; it has been a long road already and with the success of the sandbox mode, they came under much more pressure than they might have originally thought. I think threads like this are in this sense quite counter-productive; they don't motivate, but burden or distract.

 I know that you know all of this and am honestly not trying to insult you and intend no offense my friend, but the point is that I would rather have them spend the hour an update would require working on the game.

 We know what they are doing in a general sense and we first don't need our hands held to know they are there and second, probably wouldn't be interested in the minutiae with which they are engaged.

 UPDATE: Coding, recording dialogue, creating art assets, working on animations, map design and engine tweaks. Play testing, bug notes and squashing, then doing all of that previously mentioned stuff some more. All day. Every day.

 Yawn. Call me when it's done. :)

 

Thanks for the input. I agree on having them take every possible opportunity working, but it was nice knowing about how to guess maybe when the next update comes out. For example, they said they were going to start working on score after the Christmas break. Score is generally at or close to post-production for most media. It would just be nice to know that, yep, we've got the score down and are playtesting it now and tweaking. Something as simple as that would rejuvenate my hopes.

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 The lively and positive community and constant interaction and assurances from the community support team should count for something. Hinterland just don't seem the type to cut and run or leave promises unfulfilled nor things undone.

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@romerabr : Most of these threads you're referring to are some kind of an immature trolling attempt, unfortunately.

I've forwarded the issue to @Patrick Carlson and will continue to lock/delete further threads. But as the creator is deleting and reposting these contentless threads over and over again on different accounts, @cekivi and me can't do much about it. Only @Patrick Carlson and @Mel Guille can ban users temporarily (or permanently).

PS:

I've merged the one other serious thread about updates to this one. ;)

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15 hours ago, Carbon said:

 We must keep in mind that this is a small team; we could have the whole crew over for dinner and not have to look for extra chairs.

 

Haha! I couldn't have put it any better, for such a small team they're doing a ton of work

 

On 3/24/2017 at 9:06 AM, KirbyAWD said:

@Rusty_Old_F250 Thanks for reading my post as it was intended! I guess your name is pretty fitting for my ST reference B|

 

Again, my post isn't meant to be a slight on Hinterland, more of a pat on the back and keep up the good work.

Thanks!

Sam

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